{"id":287,"date":"2019-04-10T02:57:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T02:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/?p=287"},"modified":"2019-04-10T18:12:05","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T18:12:05","slug":"arts-and-the-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/2019\/04\/10\/arts-and-the-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts and the Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflection on Aaron Hertzmann’s Can Computers Create Art?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary: <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

No, not yet.

In this three-part blog post (based on his academic paper<\/a>), Aaron Hertzmann presents a holistic perspective on the relationship between arts and machines. People thought realistic painting would be obsolete with the advent of photography but artists adapted<\/a>, and we got newer styles of painting (e.g. Impressionism), and photography became a new art form. Analogical to cameras being a tool, AI could be a tool<\/a>. Further, Hertzmann argues that AI cannot (yet) be considered an artist<\/a> for it lacks the social aspects that seems central in all arts form. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflections:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I agree with Hertzmann’s argument that we can consider AI as an enabler of a new art form. Each technology has supported an adaption, mutation, and evolution of art forms. AI is a new tool towards a new art form — both of creation and appreciation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, we have moved from drawing on cave walls to a canvas. Similarly, our mode of art consumption has changed from listening opera together in a theatre to listening individually via bone conduction! Everything evolves; art is no different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for AI itself being the creator, I again agree with Hertzmann that art has a certain intent and communication that predicates sociality. AI, at least in the current form of RNNs and CNNs, do not quite espouse sociality. The programmer (or the data-feeder) has the intent, the need for communication, and hence, the social inkling. They can be considered an artist. Even a recluse (Kafka comes to mind) has an intent of self-expression and communication (be it to burn it all after death). That seems to be not there in AI systems, as Hertzmann argues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other question that arises from these posts is: how will the current (“traditional”) art forms evolve? We have seen AI mimic painting (such as those created by Picasso and Van Gogh) and copy photography styles<\/a>. There can only be two ways (and not necessarily mutually exclusive): (1) create new styles within the existing forms that AI cannot adapt and\/or (2) leverage AI as a tool to evolve a new art form that is true (to greater extent) to the old form. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflection on Aaron Hertzmann’s Can Computers Create Art? Summary: No, not yet. In this three-part blog post (based on his academic paper), Aaron Hertzmann presents a holistic perspective on the relationship between arts and machines. People thought realistic painting would be obsolete with the advent of photography but artists adapted, and we got newer styles…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/ccc2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}